Villagers in the Afghan province of Kunduz said on Tuesday they had buried dozens of victims of a government air strike in a Taliban-controlled district, in an incident the United Nations described as “disturbing”. The office of the governor of the northern province said Monday’s attack by the government air force on a Taliban meeting had inflicted an unknown number of civilian casualties. But villagers and the Taliban disputed the nature of the gathering, saying the air force had bombed a religious ceremony. The casualties underlined the risk of greater use of air power under a new US strategy announced last year to try to force the militant group to the negotiating table. Sayed Jaan, a resident of the district of Dasht-i Archi, said he attended two mass funerals of almost 40 people, adding that other burials had taken place. He said the helicopter attack happened during a religious ceremony, called Dastaar Bandi, to mark young men completing the memorization of the Koran, the Muslim holy book. “There were two mass graves to bury the victims of the bombing and I took part in both burials. In one grave, 16, and in another, 21. Many were young children,” Sayed Jaan said. “There were other burials and people were digging graves.” A senior Afghan defence ministry official said the air attack happened during a meeting of militants, and killed at least 35 Taliban and wounded many more. He denied reports that civilians were harmed and said two senior Taliban commanders were among those killed. But provincial government leaders including the governor and police had determined that the strike was against a Taliban meeting but it had also inflicted an undetermined number of civilian casualties, the governor’s office said. The Taliban briefly seized Kunduz city in 2015 and they overran it for a second time the following year. US air strikes destroyed a Kunduz hospital in 2015 killing 42 people, most of them patients and medical staff. The city has been considered relatively secure over the past year or two but the Taliban control much of the surrounding area. A video posted online by the Taliban showed at least four bodies of children, wrapped in white shrouds. Other images circulated of children and adults being treated in hospital for injuries, but they could not be verified. Building up the fledgling government air force has been a major priority for the NATO-led Resolute Support training and advisory mission. UN Investigates The United Nations said Tuesday it was investigating “disturbing reports of serious harm to civilians” in an Afghan airstrike on a religious school that security sources say left dozens of children dead or wounded. Hundreds of people were attending a graduation ceremony at the madrassa in a Taliban-controlled district in northeastern Afghanistan on Monday when Afghan Air Force helicopters struck, witnesses have told AFP. “Human Rights team on ground establishing facts. All parties reminded of obligations to protect civilians from impact of armed conflict,” the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said in a brief statement. At least 59 people, including Taliban commanders meeting at the compound in the Dashte Archi district in Kunduz province, were killed in the attack, Afghan security sources told AFP on condition of anonymity. Most of the civilian victims were children, they said. Government officials in both Kabul and Kunduz have given conflicting figures, with some denying any civilians had been killed or that a madrassa had been hit. Afghan officials have been known to minimise civilian casualties. “I myself counted 35 bodies,” Abdul Khalil told AFP at the hospital in the provincial capital Kunduz — more than 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the airstrike — where health officials said 57 injured had been taken. “I arrived at the scene right after the airstrikes — it was like a butcher’s shop. Everywhere was covered with blood, the ground was littered with body parts, heads, limbs and other parts.” A man called Yousuf, who was at the ceremony when the airstrikes happened, told AFP he saw “blood and body parts everywhere”. Afghan television showed anguished relatives standing outside the hospital yelling “shame on you”. So far the defence ministry has denied civilians were among the casualties. “Twenty Taliban, including the commander of their Red Unit in the district, and also a key member of the Quetta Shura were killed,” defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish told AFP on Monday. The Red Unit is the insurgent group’s elite unit and the Quetta Shura is its leadership council. The same number were wounded, Radmanish added. Police deny madrassa hit Kunduz police chief General Abdul Hamid Hamidi told AFP on Tuesday that “72 of the enemy” had been killed in the airstrike. Hamidi added that five civilians also died and another 52 were wounded but he denied a madrassa or mosque had been hit. Security forces have donated large quantities of blood to the hospital. The Taliban on Monday confirmed the attack on the religious school but denied that any militants had been there. The madrassa was run by Islamic scholars sympathetic to the Taliban but the facility was open to the public, a senior Taliban commander speaking from an unknown location in Pakistan told AFP on Tuesday. He said as many as 2,000 people were at the school on Monday, including 750 students, for a graduation ceremony, but insisted there were no senior Taliban leaders present. He estimated that 400 people had been killed and an unknown number wounded. The Taliban are known to exaggerate battlefield claims. Several boys with their arms and legs bandaged were seen lying in beds and along the corridors of the hospital. One of the security sources said the Taliban had started meeting at madrassas in the hope of avoiding airstrikes. US and Afghan forces are increasing ground and air offensives against Taliban and Islamic State insurgents as they try to get the upper hand in the 16-year war. Published in Daily Times, April 4th 2018.